Studying Millisecond Pulsars in X-rays

Abstract

Millisecond pulsars represent an evolutionarily distinct group among rotation-powered pulsars. Outside the radio band, the soft X-ray range ($\sim 0.1$--10 keV) is most suitable for studying radiative mechanisms operating in these fascinating objects. X-ray observations revealed diverse properties of emission from millisecond pulsars. For the most of them, the bulk of radiation is of a thermal origin, emitted from small spots (polar caps) on the neutron star surface heated by relativistic particles produced in pulsar acceleration zones. On the other hand, a few other very fast rotating pulsars exhibit almost pure nonthermal emission generated, most probably, in pulsar magnetospheres. There are also examples of nonthermal emission detected from X-ray nebulae powered by millisecond pulsars, as well as from pulsar winds shocked in binary systems with millisecond pulsars as companions. These and other most important results obtained from X-ray observations of millisecond pulsars are reviewed in this paper, as well as results from the search for millisecond pulsations in X-ray flux of the radio-quite neutron star RX J1856.5-3754.

To appear in Astrophysics and Space Science, Proceedings of "Isolated Neutron Stars: from the Interior to the Surface", eds. D. Page, R. Turolla and S. Zane; 10 pages, 12 figures (four of them are color); an aknowledgement has been added

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• X-ray Variability and Evidence for Pulsations from the Unique Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Transition Object FIRST J102347.6+003841
• The neutron star transient and millisecond pulsar in M28: from sub-luminous accretion to rotation-powered quiescence
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• Transitional millisecond pulsars
• Pulsar Pair Cascades in Magnetic Fields with Offset Polar Caps
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• Toward Identifying the Unassociated Gamma-ray Source 1FGL J1311.7-3429 with X-ray and Optical Observations
• R-modes and neutron star recycling scenario
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• Probing gamma-ray emissions of Fermi-LAT pulsars with a non-stationary outer gap model
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